Health, motor continue to drive general insurance, Q1 sales jump 17.9%

Strong health and drive demand capped the premium income of non-age players in the first quarter of the current financial year to Rs 64,262.8 crore, a growth of 17.9 per cent year-on-year when the industry was down 23 per cent.

The sudden rise in sales of the auto policy, once the largest segment in the industry but has now been pushed to second place after the health segment, can be understood given the auto segment that has sold more than 2 million units worldwide. June quarter.

The strong double-digit growth of the general insurance industry stands in sharp contrast to the 0.8 percent decline reported by life insurers in the report quarter, driven by massive weak showing from industry leader LIC across its business segments.

In June, the non-life insurance industry recorded a premium of Rs 20,451.9 crore growing by 14.8 per cent year-on-year compared to 20.6 per cent in the same period last year, according to data compiled by Care Ratings.

The additional 17.9 percentage point jump in premium collection, thus helping them post double-digit growth, can mostly be attributed to continued demand for health policies, particularly in the group segment, and auto insurance. The only laggard is the firefighting segment, which continues to underperform with a lackluster 5.9 percent growth in sales.

Of the total premium income of Rs.64,262.8 crore, Rs.56,917.3 crore came from full-service operators and Rs.6,657 crore came from independent health insurers which increased by 26.5 per cent over the same period last year. The remaining Rs 688.5 crore came from the public sector specialist general insurers which sold up to 87.6 per cent more than they did in the same period in the previous financial period when their income fell by 8.3 per cent to Rs 367 crore.

Total premium income was Rs 54,488.7 crore in the subsequent 12 months when it decreased at 22.7 per cent while health insurers contributed Rs 5,261.3 crore, an increase of 28.6 per cent in the period last year.

Of gross premiums, public sector premiums fell 11.4 per cent to Rs 23,393.5 crore, from Rs 20,993.1 crore in the subsequent 12 months when its further sales grew by 9.9 per cent.

On the other hand, private sector players who outnumber their public counterparts by a large margin sold 22 per cent more in the report quarter at Rs 40,869.3 crore from Rs 33,495.6 crore in the year-ago period when they sold Rs 32.9 each. More policies enacted.

In June 2023, private companies grew almost twice as fast as their public sector counterparts with growth of 18.1 percent versus 9.3 percent growth for non-life insurers in the public sector. This caused the market share of private players to jump to 64 percent in Q1 FY24 from 62 percent in Q1 FY23 and 59 percent in Q1 FY22.